Bill Condon on Beauty and the Beast, Twilight Aftermath, and His Ian McKellen Reunion

When Bill Condon first spoke to Disney about making a live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, the director says the studio was uncertain it wanted to make the film a musical. Condon, who is largely credited with reviving the movie musical genre thanks to his Chicago screenplay and Dreamgirls adaptation, responded to the ambivalence as any die-hard Disney fan might: “With all due respect, I think you’re crazy. The songs are too good. You’re going to spend all this time making a huge, gorgeous live-action Beauty and the Beast and not do ‘Be Our Guest’?"

Fortunately, the studio listened to Condon, and the (thankfully) musical adaptation was green-lit with an all-star ensemble cast including Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, Luke Evans, Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson, and three-time Condon collaborator Ian McKellen. Filming is already underway, and, while holed up in Belle’s poor provincial town, Condon agreed to answer e-mail questions from VF.com about his varied filmography—beginning with Gods and Monsters, the 1998 drama that cemented his career and earned him his screenwriting Oscar; including Mr. Holmes, Condon’s Sherlock-themed reunion with Ian McKellen, which is out in theaters now; and ending with his Beauty and the Beast adaptation, which is slated for a 2017 release.

Ahead, the filmmaker looks back on Twilight: Breaking Dawn, considers how Alfred Kinsey (whom Condon examined in his 2004 biopic) might react to the Caitlyn Jenner news coverage, and explains how his Beauty and the Beast will be different from the 1991 original.

GODS AND MONSTERS (1998)

VF Hollywood: You’ve made a series of movies examining complex individuals. As a filmmaker, is there any point in the creative process when you become obsessed with your subjects, or figuring them out?

Bill Condon: To get inside a character, there comes a point where you begin to have a sort of one-on-one relationship with them whether they’re fictional or not. You spend a lot of time alone with them. It can be quite intense, and quite isolating. But I also think I tend to focus on characters who are themselves isolated. James Whale, Julian Assange, Sherlock Holmes, even the beast in Beauty and the Beast, in some way, these are all characters who are living in exile. And it’s an exile of their own making. Kind of like being a screenwriter.

Speaking of James Whale, who was an openly gay director in the 1930s and 1940s, you said in a past interview that “there is a gay sensibility in everything” you do, including the Twilight movies, and that audiences, which are still dominated by the straight male point of view, might “bristle against that gay sensibility when it’s too in evidence or when it feels to them inappropriate.” Why do you think this is? And what do you think it would take for this dynamic—audiences being dominated by the straight male point of view—to change in the near future?

I do think that for audiences, particularly straight, male audiences, there is a standard of “cool,” and anything they perceive of as reflecting a “gay sensibility” is outside of that. I think straight males, particularly younger guys, tend to prefer films by and large that don’t demand much of them emotionally. There’s so much out there geared towards these audiences that’s all about revenge and anger, but much less that speaks to the range of other emotional experiences they might have in their lifetime. Frankly, I don’t see that changing any time soon, since it clearly satisfies some appetite out there, which is profitable. But yeah, in the sense that I like material that explores a wider range of emotions and relationships, I guess the films I like making sometimes don’t connect to that straight male demographic. Fair enough.

KINSEY (2004)

It’s interesting to look back on this film when the topic of human sexuality—especially following the Caitlyn Jenner cover—is the subject of national discussion. When you made this film, were you looking to teach moviegoers anything about sexuality? Do you ever approach a project thinking about specific points you want to make to your audience?

I did about a year’s worth of research before writing the script for Kinsey, and in that time, I went up to Nyack, New York, and met a disciple of Kinsey’s, a sex researcher named Clarence Tripp. I asked him a similar question: Do you think Kinsey would be
happy with the strides that have been made culturally and socially in terms of sexual politics in the decades since his death? What would he think about gay-pride parades, for example? And Clarence Tripp said, “Oh, he’d be horrified!” Which caught me off-guard.

But he was trying to say, I think, that Kinsey’s message was, don’t march in anyone else’s parade. Be your own parade. And it feels like with Caitlyn Jenner, and everything that’s happening right now to recognize not only gay but gender-identity rights, we’re rushing into a moment in history where people can move up and down on that Kinsey scale over the course of a lifetime. Not just figuring out whether you were a zero or a six and staying there, but changing, and being unafraid to change.

DREAMGIRLS (2006)

You are credited with reviving the musical-movie genre. With your expertise in musicals and musical adaptations, what do you think of the seemingly endless musical-adaptation announcements we hear about, pegged to everything from Clueless, and Mean Girls to Groundhog Day and James Bond? Is there a rule that producers should go by . . . if a film does not have X or Y elements, it should not become a musical?

You know, between Dreamgirls and the screenplay for Chicago, I think I’ve been fortunate to be around during an interesting moment in the resurgence of the movie musical. I don’t think there are any hard and fast rules to the form, except that hopefully, the songs are good, and they move the story forward. When I first spoke to Disney about doing Beauty and the Beast, they actually weren’t sure they were going to do this new version as a musical, and I said, “With all due respect, I think you’re crazy. The songs are too good. You’re going to spend all this time making a huge, gorgeous live-action Beauty and the Beast and not do ‘Be Our Guest’?”

On Dreamgirls, you worked with Jennifer Hudson, an entertainment newcomer, and Beyoncé, an already established star. What was it like directing women on two completely opposite ends of the stardom scale? What challenges did that present?

It was so thrilling to be a part of the discovery, or re-discovery of Jennifer in that incredible moment. Although I have to say, I sometimes feel that Beyoncé didn’t get enough credit for how totally spot-on her performance was.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN (2011 and 2012

What are some of the lasting effects of directing Twilight movies?

Non-fans will never let me forget them, ever, ever.

Some people were surprised that you signed onto Twilight, but you have a background and interest in horror and suspense. Have you inserted any horror-movie homages into movies that viewers might be surprised to hear about?

One of the reasons I wanted to do Breaking Dawn was that it really was a chance to channel my love of classic horror films into this massive pop phenomenon. In a lot of ways, the climax of Breaking Dawn, Part 1 is a recasting of one of my favorite
films, James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein. Bella’s death and rebirth represents Edward turning her into a monster, re-creating her in order to save her. It was something that I felt reflected my lifelong love of the macabre . . . to say nothing of the fun I had shooting a huge wedding cake made of bloody corpses. I’m glad they let me drop that in.

Did any part of you feel vindicated by Kristen Stewart’s recent César win? When actors or directors make a big franchise film like Twilight, people sometimes write them off as having sold out. Have you felt vindicated since the movie? Do you even need vindication?

I’d been a fan of Kristen’s before Breaking Dawn, and I loved working with her. She’s incredibly smart and committed, she played such a range of emotions across a single film, from wedding jitters to death throes to vampire orgasm—I mean, if you can pull that off, you can do anything.

THE FIFTH ESTATE (2013)

Assange might be the most controversial figure you’ve tackled yet in your film career. Do any specific moments on set come to mind?

We made The Fifth Estate at an interesting moment, and I think it’s a film that reflects the uncertainty of that moment, really by design. We tried to raise more questions than we answered—a rare opportunity, frankly, in studio filmmaking. Julian Assange is a polarizing figure, and it seemed that to do justice to what he represented, we couldn’t just make a film that took a side or told the audience what to think. And Benedict was an incredibly thoughtful partner in that approach. He had direct contact with Assange, who—I’ll never forget this—e-mailed Ben the day before we started shooting in Iceland, and told him he should walk off the film. It was a sort of a ‘holy shit’ moment to be honest, because the last thing any of us wanted to do was make something that got it all wrong.

But Benedict stuck to his guns and went back to Julian and said, “I think this is an amazing opportunity to do justice to you and your message, but that the way to do it may not be the way you would do it.” . . . It’s a complex film. I’m very proud of it.

MR. HOLMES (2015)

In what ways have you and Ian changed since working together on your first collaboration?

Well, Ian and I have only become closer as friends through the 18 years that separated Gods and Monsters and Mr. Holmes, so there was a real creative shorthand between us on set, and we fell right back into it. And, in the past 18 years, so much of Ian’s life has also been spent in these big visual-effects-heavy films, he was really looking forward to getting off of a green-screen stage, putting the real work of an actor front and center, and building a film around that. Mr. Holmes is set in 1947, and it was really almost like making a film in 1947 . . . if only because we could barely get any cell reception in East Sussex. But I do think the film really reflects the pleasure we got out of making it.

You manage to provide a fresh, thought-provoking angle on Sherlock Holmes, a character that has been portrayed countless times in culture. What made you excited to tackle a character so well known and oft depicted?

You know, there’s one scene that I think sort of sums up the fun of making the film. Sherlock Holmes goes to a movie theater to see a Sherlock Holmes film, which, of course, he finds totally ludicrous—but it forces him to confront the fiction that in a sense
his own life has become, and to investigate it. Which is really a delicious idea. Holmes investigating himself. At the same time, in this scene there’s a little Sherlockian nod. The actor we had playing the matinee Holmes is Nick Rowe, who played young Sherlock Holmes in 1985. . . . Oddly, though, even with all the depictions the character has had, including the young version, there really hadn’t been an Old Sherlock Holmes on-screen.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (2017)

So excited to see this adaptation! Did you have Emma Watson, Dan Stevens, or Luke Evans sing certain songs from the movie when they auditioned. If so, what?

Actually, I had them all sing “Hakuna Matata,” just to confuse them.

How are you changing the story to reflect the third dimension that the animated original did not have?

We’re actually here in Belle’s poor provincial town right now, corralling an angry mob, which has always been a dream of any Frankenstein fan . . . I wouldn’t say we’re changing the story so much as sort of making connections that in a lot of cases were right under the surface. Honestly, there are so many people who love the original film and love the Broadway show, and they’ve had two decades now to pick them apart and point out big questions and plot holes, and in a lot of places we looked at those and said, “Hey, that’s a good question,” or “That’s an excellent point, why don’t these townspeople know anything about this huge castle that’s like a mile away from their village?,” and used those as jumping off points for our own discussions. So hopefully, this will be a film where a die-hard fan can jump up and say “exactly!”

Would you please give us one clue about the ballroom dance sequence? Thank you!

It was one of the first scenes we shot, and it was really magical. You will believe a beast can waltz.